Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SSD Review

Looking for an affordable SSD but demand a high-performance controller? Kingston’s SSDNow V300 is shaping up to be just that. Powered by a SandForce SF-2281 controller and paired with Toshiba’s 19nm Toggle-based NAND, it’s an aggressive entrant for its price-point. Let’s check it out.

Synthetic: AS SSD

As the name implies, AS SSD is a nifty little program written exclusively for solid-state drives. It can still be run on a mechanical hard drive just for fun, but be warned: what takes a few minutes on an SSD will require the better part of an hour on an HDD! It is freely available for download here.

This handy tool measures sequential reads and writes in addition to the important 4KB random reads and writes, then ranks the results with a final score for quick comparison with other SSDs. In addition to the main test there is a secondary benchmark that simulates the type of data transferred for ISO, Program, and Game files. We selected this program for its precision, ability to generate large file sizes on-the-fly, and because it is written to bypass Windows 7’s automatic caching system.

The SSDNow V300 has a steep bar to meet but performs well for an SSD targeting the value market. Read results are mixed with the V300 edging out the V4 sequentially, and roughly tying the HyperX 3K in the 4KB test. Probably due to its lower capacity, the V300 120GB struggles more in the write tests but still delivers respectable performance. As expected, latency results closely match those of its larger, premium relative, the HyperX 3K.